Mental Health America of Northern California (MHANCA), with help from the California Endowment, will host two LGBTQ Awareness Trainings for professionals in the Sacramento area. The first of these will be held on April 25th from 9am to 3pm. They are designed to create a safe space for asking questions and finding answers to any and all questions concerning the LGBTQ community. To register, contact Nicole Scanlan, LGBTQ Project Coordinator for MHANCA, at nscanlan@mhanca.org.

The Sacramento International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival is happening on October 10th through the 12th at the beautiful and historic Crest Theatre in Sacramento. The festival kicks off Thursday night with the short film “Housebroken” directed by Wade Grasque and the feature length film “The Happy Sad” directed by Rodney Evans.

Last Friday, California became the 13th U.S. state to legalize gay marriage.

Gay rights in California have reached new grounds as of the past week. Two victories rocked California’s gay communities earlier in the week and set the wheels of change turning. Now, the floodgates are open and gay marriages are being performed freely in our state.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals lifted its ban on same-sex marriages on June 28th, making California the 13th state to legalize gay marriage. This not only is a joyful moment for those who have been waiting, protesting, and advocating for the cause, but to those in general who believed that the change might never come.

“There should have never been an issue in the first place,” said Peter Jordan, an advocate for gay rights. “But as of now, things are finally as they should be.”

This is definitely not the end of Sacramento’s battle against all types of discrimination. Members of the collective Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Questioning community (or LGBTQ), have rejoiced in the news but also made it clear that this is not the end of their activism. On Wednesday, June 26th, the LGBTQ declared their next course of action.

“While celebrating today’s victory, we ask that you pair your celebration with a declaration to continue supporting cultural change and fighting bigotry in our community. Declare that LGBTQ youth should NOT make up more than 30% of homeless youth. Declare that seniors should NOT face isolation and harassment in long-term care. Declare that transgender health benefits are NOT a burden, but a right.”

Though the battle for full equality still needs to be fought in schools, the streets, and other places, the victory has still put smiles on the faces many of Sacramento citizens.

To learn more about LGBTQ and their ongoing projects here in Sacramento, you can visit their website, here.

Sacramento is a city made up of hundreds of different types of people, places and things. Each and every person or place is special to the community that it is made up of. One of these diverse communities of Sacramento is its LGBT community, or the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.

The Sacramento Gay & Lesbian Center is an organization that is dedicated to serving the lesbian, gay, transgender and bisexual community of Sacramento and all of the counties surrounding. The Sacramento Gay & Lesbian Center provides several programs, advocacy and cultural activities to spread community awareness in a safe and compassionate environment. The hopes of this center is to provide services that will support, strengthen and expand this diverse community while continuing to expand community involvement.

One of the programs of the The Sacramento Gay & Lesbian Center is Sacramento Rainbow Families. This program is designed to provide opportunities for LGBT parents and their children. This is so that all of the parents and children can connect to other families that share similar family structures in a safe and fun environment. The Rainbow Families program is also used as a resource for family support. Each and every month there are planned activities for members of the program to enjoy such as monthly infant-toddler play groups, family-focused play date events and workshops on topics of interest to LGBT-parented families.

Not only does the The Sacramento Gay & Lesbian Center have programs and events for the LGBT community, but the straight community as well. This center wants to enlighten and educate the community on the lifestyles of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender by creating fun events such as the Sacramento Pride Parade. Each year the Sacramento Pride Festival and Parade acts as a time and place where communities of all types can come together for food, crafts, entertainment and fun all in the name of love and acceptance.

For more information on the Sacramento Gay & Lesbian Center or other events in the LGBT community visit http://saccenter.org/ or call (916) 442-0185.

There are many resources that are needed in Sacramento, and one of those resources are safe places for youth, specifically LGBTQ and allied youth. Even though there are after school programs and other “safe places” for youth to go, few of these are friendly for youth that are LGBTQ. These places can lack mentors that are familiar and supportive or have unwelcoming even homophobic feeling environments. It is important for a community to provide accessible resources for ALL youth and that means having a space that is safe for LGBTQ youth just like it is important to have a place where students from other cultural backgrounds can go to be safe.

Here in Sacramento, resources for LGBTQ youth are not well distributed as most services such as groups for youth are downtown, and while downtown is probably to easiest place to get to it is still a struggle for some. Good news is that over the past few years community members and organizations have taken sight of the lack of resources and started efforts to expand. For Sacramento, it may have just been the Gay and Lesbian Center. But, now there are resources such as the Connect Center in Sacramento City Unified School District and the Gender Health Center around that offer services for LGBTQ youth and even non-LGBTQ youth.

It may not be extremely visible but there are resources and services if you look.

If you would like to be involved with the current work that is happening to make Sacramento a more inclusive city for LGBTQ youth Contact Ajay Lawson via email at ajayxd@gmail.com or call/text her at 916-284-8742